The crash landing earlier this month of Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco called to mind a dark period in South Korea's aviation history, when a series of deadly crashes on Korean Air planes led Delta and Air France to suspend the airline from their code-sharing alliance.

"The airline was ostracized by a lot of people in the global aviation community," airline pilot, blogger, and author of Cockpit Confidential Patrick Smith said in an interview.

The results were clear: In 2002, Delta and Air France welcomed Korean Air back to the fold. The Department of Defense lifted the ban on its employees' using the airline, according to the New York Times.

The best mark of approval came from the International Civil Aviation Organization, the air transport arm of the United Nations, which gave the country a perfect score in a 2008 safety audit, covering categories including licensing, operations, airworthinesss, and accident investigation.

That's well above the global average, and better than the United States, based on the most recent audit numbers (for South Korea, 2008, and for the U.S., from 2005-2007):